Bayside Academy

High Expectations lead to High Achievers

Emergencies & School Closure

From time to time children are sick (vomit) either at home or at school. Unfortunately it is not possible to distinguish between the causes, and therefore it is essential that the same rule of exclusion applies in all cases of vomiting and/or Diarrhoea.

In the Health Protection Agency document, “Guidelines for the Control of Infection and Communicable Disease in School and Early Years Settings”, the guidance is:

Diarrhoea and Vomiting exclusion

Diarrhoea and/or vomiting commonly affects children and staff and can be caused by a number of different germs, including viruses, parasites and bacteria. Infections can be easily spread from person to person (by unwashed hands), especially in children. In general, it is recommended that any staff member or child with diarrhoea and/or vomiting symptoms must stay away or be excluded from the school or early years setting until they have been free of symptoms for 48 hours (the ‘48 hour rule’) and feel well. Personal hygiene whilst ill must be very strict.

If your child is sick at school, we will ask you or your emergency contact to take your child home. They should not return for 48 hours. We appreciate that this is inconvenient in many cases, and you may not believe your child is ill, but you will appreciate that we do this in all cases and it should reduce the risk of infection for all children in school. As an example, if your child is sick at lunchtime on a Tuesday, they should not return to school until after lunch on Thursday, provided there have not been any further episodes of vomiting.

Emergency Contact Details

It is vital that the school holds a valid and up to date contact number for a parent/guardian. A further two friends or relatives details should also be provided to enable contact to be made with someone in the event of an emergency.

IMPORTANT; The School Office needs to be informed immediately of any change to contact information.

School Closure

In an emergency or exceptionally bad weather, it may be necessary to close the school. Information will be made available on the ticker tape roll shown on the bottom of our website. A message will also be sent to Wave radio so please listen in the mornings to check if we have had to close the school for any reason.

Dear Parents/Carers

As we have received notification of local weather warnings being upgraded to ‘Amber’ for Thursday and Friday please be advised of the procedures in place as per our website. Information can be found under the ‘Parents’ tab, under the heading, ‘school closure’. We will also use the ticker tape message that runs at the bottom of the website page.

We are hoping to remain open throughout this spell of adverse weather but please be assured that the health, safety and well being of children and staff will be at the centre of the decision.

The following points are taken into discussion with the site manager before a decision is made

Is the school site safe for pupils and staff? This includes heating, grounds and levels of staff who can administer 1st aid.

Are the roads and pavements around the school safe for pupils/parents and staff?

Will the catering company be able to deliver our hot school meals?

Can a sufficient number of staff get to school safely to maintain the correct levels of staff to pupil ratio in all areas of the school?

In this instance, does the weather forecast suggest that further heavy snowfall is likely during the day? This point is more difficult to predict as I have to take into consideration pupils and staff being unable to safely get home to their families.

As normal procedure, all staff contact the school from 6.30am – 7.30am to inform us if they cannot attend work. Many staff do not live locally to the school and some live in rural areas, therefore if their local schools close and their own children require supervision, this then has a knock on effect to our staffing levels.

We will endeavour to stay open, hopefully the adverse weather will miss us but please keep informed via the website.

Best wishes and stay safe

Mrs Prout

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We break up for Easter on Friday 5th April at 3.15. We return on Tuesday 23rd April at 8.30am.